About Me

I am, according to one of my granddaughters, a little old lady. Sometimes I feel a little old but mostly I forget to check. I like scrapbooking, photography and family history. those are the main hobbies but I also knit, sew, bead, embroider, quilt, cook and avoid housework.

Sunday, 2 December 2012

Reviewing the Situation...

This story comes to you through the inspiration of Sian over at From High in the Sky If you have come here from there - Welcome and enjoy the read. If you are one of my faithful readers - bless you for your stamina and why not click on the link and read some of the other stories that have been told especially for today.
Sian suggested a theme of coming home and I did have a sort of story BUT this happened last week and I am still remembering and beginning to laugh.

Every year I am called to our doctor's surgery for a diabetic review. My blood pressure is checked and blood taken and I am weighed, measured and found wanting.... that's how it feels anyway, but the practice needs those QOF points. Because points mean pounds. I digress.

The procedure has changed a little these days as the goal posts are moved and standards are changed and now we have to go see the phlebotomist and she takes the blood samples and sends them off and a few days later we go to the practice nurse who does the rest.

One of the things required is a urine sample, and to ensure we don't give them half a pint of wee in an old jam jar they supply a neat plastic vial and a small pot for us to pee into. I can now say that I actually have a pot to pee in!!! Sorry, I'll behave myself now.

The other thing you have to do is fast the night before the appointment, so.... I fasted and knowing that I would need to pee in a hurry when I woke up I took the little pot - which is about 3 inches diameter and about 2 inches deep - into the bathroom upstairs and put it where I could grab it quickly. I then went to bed.

When I woke I needed to "go" quickly so I hurried to the bathroom, pulled down the pyjama trousers, grabbed the teeny, tiny pot and struggled to position it where it would .... do most good.

Now let me just say that I am not the right shape for trying to get my head between my legs. No, those days are long gone. I have an expanded waistline that doesn't allow such acrobatics, so it wasn't easy to get that minuscule pot into position but I managed it.

I stopped peeing when it was full - thank goodness for pelvic floor exercises - and pulled my hand out from the depths. That's when everything went to hell in a hand-basket. The pot, even though it seemed so small, now assumed the proportions of a mixing bowl and caught on the elastic of my pyjama trousers - this being around my knees. The pot slipped out of my... damp fingers and flipped upside down into said pyjama trousers, making my legs, the trousers and the bathroom floor very wet.

A lot of cussing followed, to the extent that Mr M tapped on the door and asked if everything was OK.
"Everything's fine!" I said, stepping out of the soggy trousers and scooping them into the bath. Making sure they didn't splash. "That was irony, right?" he said and the sound of his footsteps faded as he went down stairs. As I wiped the floor then washed my legs I realised that I still needed a urine sample and do you know what? Thanks to those horrible boring exercises the midwife made me do after my children were born, there was still enough left in the tank to fill that pot again and ensure that this time it really was a "mid stream specimen"

As for the review, well, my weight is exactly the same as last year, cholesterol fine, retinopathy results fine, my tummy measures the same as the last two years and the blood sugar is still within guidelines.

17 comments:

Oh dear, this post made me laugh out loud! Anyone who has had to do the same contortions to get a 'sample' would be able to sympathise and I was literally chuckling to myself imagining how this tale unfolded! How lucky that you had enough in 'reserve' to complete the task!

Just the laugh I needed on a grey Sunday morning here! I'm delighted to hear that your review went well after all that concentrated effort and yes, like everyone else, I am now thinking about a bit more exercise :) Great story

Yeah for Kegels huh? Glad you checked out o.k. and I hear you on the found wanting :sigh: During my pregnancy with Ewok one of those plastic vials was stolen from my backpack as I traveled through London to my appointment - best excuse the midwife had heard she told me :lol: